1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the memories of the central processing units of microcomputers and more particularly to a method and device for the incremental reading of a memory so as to improve its performance characteristics by increasing the data output speed, should the reading be done at consecutive addresses of the memory in the mode known as the "burst read" mode.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Pieces of data contained in a memory are read by means of addresses or addressing codes that are provided successively to addressing circuits of the memory by the central processing unit of the microprocessor or microcontroller, each addressing code corresponding to a piece of data that is then processed by the central processing unit according to the instruction being executed. In this mode of reading, the pieces of data contained in the memory are read only as and when the addressing codes arrive, the addressing code of the next piece of data to be processed being provided only after the transfer of the previous piece of data into the central processing unit.
This read mode results in idle time during reading of the memory and therefore results in a time delay. This time delay is detrimental to the speed of computation of the central processing unit.